Two Kids conducting a Usability Test

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Everyone is excited when creating a new website, but sometimes they get way over their heads and create a website that is too complicated for others to use. The creators become blind to the problems others may encounter and have no idea that there is fixing to be done. That is why the creator of the website should conduct a usability test in order to see what they need to work on in order for the website to work as efficiently as possible. In Usability with Steve Krug, Steve Krug teaches that conducting a usability test does not have to be difficult or some elaborate thing. Because of how close the creator is to the website; they usually have a hard time finding any problem with it but if someone who has no idea what the website is has a hard time figuring out how to operate the website, then there is a problem. Conducting a usability test is the correct way to figure out what possible problems a website could have. It needs to be user friendly and any average person should be able to navigate it with little to no problem. Steve Krug gives a few ideas on an easy and quick way to conduct a usability test.  The main thing is to have at least three users and screen sharing to see how they are navigating the website and observe if there are any problems.

Are there other ways to conduct a usability test? Of course there are! In Kelly Dern’s Rapid usability testing for designers, she gives a list of examples on how to effectively conduct tests to get the fastest result.  She goes step by step on how many users, research methods and quite a few interesting ideas on how to conduct a usability test. Finding a method that works best for you is the right step towards making the website usability friendly.

This chapter is a revised version of a blog post titled “As easy as 1-2-3!” on the blog Production for the Net.